The Sun’s political editor Trevor Kavanagh railed about “the Muslim problem” in a piece for the Murdoch rag on August 13 – reminiscent of nazi propaganda about a “Jewish problem” which culminated in the extermination of six million Jewish people.

In the article, he blamed Muslims for the "wave of rape and other sex crimes" across Europe.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called for an investigation by press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) into the latest anti-Muslim diatribe – and the racism regularly promoted by other sections of the national daily press.

Campaign group Global Justice Now, along with Muslim and Jewish organisations, have joined the call for an inquiry  and have set up an online petition.

A widespread boycott of The Sun exists already across Merseyside for its appalling coverage of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster in Sheffield in 1989, when 96 Liverpool football fans were killed in a crush.

The paper blamed Liverpool fans for the disaster and even accused them of stealing from the dead and urinating on police officers.

NUJ ethics council chairman Chris Frost said: “IPSO should launch an immediate investigation into the prevalence of Islamophobia, racism and hatred espoused in the press. IPSO claims to be set apart from its predecessor, the Press Complaints Commission, because it can run investigations and do monitoring - now is the time to prove it.”

Mr Kavanagh is a member of IPSO’s governing board.

Global Justice Now has called for his resignation so that the regulator can hold “an effective, unbiased inquiry.”